Name
The name–letter effect is one of the widest used measures of implicit self-esteem. It represents the idea that an individual prefers the letters belonging to their own name and will select these above other letters in choice tasks. This effect has been found in a vast range of studies. In one such scenario, participants were given a list of letters, one of which contained letters from their own name and the other of which contained other letters, and asked them to circle the preferred letter. This study found that, even when accounting for all other variables, letters belonging to the participants' own names were preferred.Nuttin, J.M. (1985). Narcissism beyond Gestalt and awareness: The name–letter effect. European Journal of Social Psychology, 15(3), 353–361. Similar results have been found in cross-cultural studies, using different alphabets.Hoorens, V., Nuttin, J.M., Herman, I.E., & Pavakanun, U. (1990). Mastery pleasure versus mere ownership: A quasi-experimental cross-cultural and cross alphabetical test of the name–letter effect. European Journal of Social Psychology, 20(3), 181–205. The name–letter effect differs from "implicit egotism",Pelham, B.W., Carvallo, M., & Jones, J.T. (2005). Implicit egoism. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 14(2), 106–110. the latter being attributed to the way people allegedly gravitate towards places, people and situations that reflect themselves, including perhaps similarities with their own name. Cause The effect is argued by some researchers to arise from "implicit egotism"Pelham, B.W., Mirenberg, M.C., & Jones, J.T. (2002). Why Susie sells seashells by the seashore: Implicit egotism and major life decisions. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 82(4), 469–487. PDF: Because people tend to hold a positive self-regard, they tend to like what is associated with themselves. The fact that the name–letter effect correlates only weakly with questionnaire measures of self-esteemKrizan, Z., & Suls, J. (2008). Are implicit and explicit measures of self-esteem related? A meta-analysis for the Name-Letter Test. Personality and Individual Differences, 44(2), 521-531. is consistent with the view that these measures assess different components of self-esteem and predict different behaviorsAsendorpf, J. B., Banse, R., & Mucke, D. (2002). Double dissociation between implicit and explicit personality self-concept: The case of shy behavior. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 83(2), 380-393.. The effect is hypothesized to result not just from writing one's own name repeatedly, because the effect is observed for people who write their names in Cyrillic characters: When selecting words written in the Latin alphabet, these people prefer words containing letters superficially similar to those in their own names even when letters having those shapes represent different sounds in their own alphabet (e.g., P (Cyrillic equivalent of Latin R), C (in Latin, S), and X (in Latin, "Kh")).The name letter effect: Attachment to self or primacy of own name writing? by Vera Hoorens and Elka Todorova. European Journal of Social Psychology. Volume 18, Issue 4, Pages 365–368. March 1988. Birthdays and numbers The birthday–number effect is a similar bias hypothesized for birthdays and numbers.Name Letter Preferences Are Not Merely Mere Exposure: Implicit Egotism as Self-Regulation. Jones, Pelham, Mirenberg and Hetts. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology Volume 38, Issue 2, March 2002, Pages 170–177. Criticism Its implications for major life decisions are controversial. If people have a preference for the letters of their name, do they also prefer jobs, cities, and relationship partners with similar names? Whereas some studies have suggested that this might be the case, other researchers have pointed out that these effects are nothing other than statistical artifacts. Gallucci, M. (2003). I sell seashells by the seashore and my name is Jack: Comment on Pelham, Mirenberg, and Jones (2002). Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 85(5), 789-799.Pelham, B.W., Carvallo, M., DeHart, T., Jones, J.T. (2003). Assessing the validity of implicit egotism: A reply to Gallucci (2003). Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 85(5), 800-807.McCullough. Baseball players with the initial "K" do not strike out more often. - Journal of Applied Statistics, 2010Yamaguchi. Baseball managers, no need to worry about players' initials: Comment on Nelson and Simmons. - International Journal of Sport Psychology 2010 References External links * Mixing Memory (blog): The Name-Letter Effect, Or Why Chris is a Cognitive Psychologist (scienceblogs.com) Category:Cognitive biases Category:Names